Family History: New Opportunities for Archivists

Abstract

American archivists have shared with their professional colleagues who do research and write about American the awakening realization that the picture of America which they together have produced has been limited, episodic, and, frankly, elitist. Traditionally, archivists have diligendy sought to preserve and make available the previously created records of organizations and outstanding individuals. The archives of government, business, unions, churches, civic groups, and the like, and the manuscripts of prominent persons in other words, the sources articulated by the upper classes were tacitly assumed to contain the significant information necessary for historical reconstruction. Archivists simply reflected and served historians who for their part chose to focus upon leading institutions, thinkers, and actors in portraying the past. During the past decade or so, however, various social, political, and intellectual developments made archivists and historians aware that they had been hard at work chronicling only a portion of American life: the efforts of executives rather than workers, social problems from the experience of reformers rather than victims, war from the viewpoint of generals rather than privates, and above all, the lives of great white men rather than ordinary people, especially if they were black, women, or children.1 Calls began to be heard for history from the bottom up, for an historical synthesis which reflected the experiences of inarticulate groups as well as the upper classes and the common dimensions of human experience as well as the notable, the dramatic, and the unusual. As historians and archivists have undertaken a broader exploration of American they have recognized the inadequacy of traditional documentary resources for this task and have begun to consider ways of dealing with the problem.

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